Hacienda Luisita

This is the first of the catching up. I'm pretty sure I wrote most of this the day of so that's the tense it's in. We went to Hacienda Luisita on Thursday, July 17.

Today, I got up at 4am to take a shower in the dark thanks to good ol' Glenda the typhoon. The early start wa because we had a 2+ hour drive to Hacienda Luisita. In case you aren't up to date on your Spanish, a hacienda is a giant farm, more closely related to a plantation. But to put it into perspective, it is 6,435 hectares of land or almost16,000 acres.

It took me a while to understand the issue at hand. A history of imperialism has messed a lot of things up. From my understanding, sometime after the Spanish left, there wa a document that said the land should be distributed to the people within ten years. This would be all fine and dandy except that the farmers still don't own the land. It is all owned by the same family, the Cojuangco family, which is related to the president's family, the Aquinos. It seems that several governments ago loopholes were created to get out of distributing the land to the farmers. This is how the Cojuangco's were able acquire it. Then, in another government they escaped distribution by forming Hacienda Luisita Inc where they made the farmers share holders. Now, there has been a Supreme Court case in favor or the farmers, saying that the land must be distributed to them. And the Cojuangco family started giving land away to people, but only their relatives and not the farmers. This is a confusing issue to me and I've done some outside reading, but there's still a lot I don't know. There's always two sides to a story and I invite you to look into it if you are interested.

One of the most vivid images I have of the hacienda is that of the concrete walls topped with barbed wire surrounding recently bulldozed fields. Farmers plant the land and the bulldozers would come. All they can do is replant because that is all they know how to do. The people against them use guns and government officers turning blind eyes. It's a big injustice to the people who just want to be able to provide for their families. There are so few jobs here that it is really sad people are destroying the only infrastructure they have. People are being evicted from their homes just so they can fence off the land and do nothing with it. Apparently there may be plans to build a sports arena.

We visited a section of about 8 hectares that the activists farmed organically. Unlike the US where everything is mechanized, in the Philippines everything is done by hand. After a quick presentation on the land distribution (or lack thereof) we worked out on the farm. One of their plots had actually just been flattened last week. After a muddy trek, we reached the rice paddies. I got to be like my fellow GJVs at ARI in Japan by planting rice. Let's just say it's probably better that they are there and I am here. It was fun to wade into the muddy, slimy patch, but all my rice stalks fell over in the water and my lines were anything but straight where I planted.

After lunch, we went to a community center where they were gathering the people to prepare to protest at the SONA (State of the Nation Address). This speech by the president usually says how great everything is going in the country, including the "success" of the land distribution act.

One of the first people to speak was a young girl named Angela. She is now 10 years old, but when she was 7, she witnessed a massacre outside the sugar refinery. They killed everyone with knives and guns. Though officially 7 were killed, it is likely many more were not counted. They spared her because she was a child, but she was scarred by the experience, witnessing her aunt be killed right in front of her. She has become very politically active for the farmer's rights because of this experience. She is a brave little girl, not only surviving the massacre, but being able to speak out about it in front of crowds that number in the thousands. She is protected by the community because she was the only survivor. They watch over her at school and at home. She is really a special girl.

It was a very long day that ended by going back to a dark house. Still no power.